Creating SAFE and inviting places for PEDS and BIKES as a priority.
Keeping vehicular traffic moving at high capacity.
WE CAN HAVE BOTH
Keeping vehicular traffic moving at high capacity.
WE CAN HAVE BOTH
Fully Autonomous Vehicles on Redesigned Roadways with Grade Separations between Pedestrians and Vehicles is the Future Safety Solution that has been Elusive to date... it will in fact be the answer to eliminating fatalities on the roadways throughout the world, by eliminating factors that lead to accidents by incompetent drivers, careless or risk-taking drivers or pedestrians, including the past mistakes of mixing pedestrians and high speed vehicles on roads.
VISION AV0*: Near Zero Vehicle Fatalities by year 2022
SOURCE: PRISM ENGINEERING and the United States NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
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Ford's Executive Chairman Bill Ford says Not so Fast...
In this video, Ford’s City of Tomorrow looks at how near-term mobility advancements – including autonomous and electric vehicles, ride-sharing and ride-hailing and connected vehicles – interact with urban infrastructure and create a transportation ecosystem. Ford is imagining a world in which reconfigurable roads fluidly respond to commuter needs and traffic flow. PRISM Engineering is also looking at the big picture and understands that:
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There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to roadway safety and design. Every city is different. AV Tech is not enough. You need the proper infrastructure, a Smarter city. Each must be CUSTOM BUILT.
The safety needs of pedestrians and cyclists should always be paramount, and must be studied. The movement of people and goods by vehicle transport is also paramount to our economies, but these can be done safely with Autonomous Vehicles (AV).
The HUMAN ELEMENTS of:
1) BAD JUDGMENT,
2) RISK TAKING, and
3) INATTENTION BEHIND THE WHEEL
can all be eliminated with AV technology, which does none of the above... the main cause of accidents throughout the world.
1) BAD JUDGMENT,
2) RISK TAKING, and
3) INATTENTION BEHIND THE WHEEL
can all be eliminated with AV technology, which does none of the above... the main cause of accidents throughout the world.
AV can operate safely on repurposed and redesigned roadways in order to avoid high speed contact with PEDS or Bikes, or other non-AV. But it will take barriers, grade separations, tunnels, and bridges, and AV expressways and priority lanes where pedestrians do not have regular access. Eventually, all new vehicles will be Autonomous, most likely by legislation as a safety mitigation to our current crisis of vehicle death.
Once we eliminate the danger of high speed traffic conflicts, through automation and separation,
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PRISM Engineering's Grant Johnson, TE spent 2.5 years in China specializing in creating transportation designs and solutions based on Complete Streets concepts and guidelines, a tool for making roadways more pedestrian friendly in an environment where vehicles are driven by humans, and a certain percentage of humans being prone to distraction and/or risky and unsafe driving behavior. In this process he observed that although China's large cities have a similar amount of traffic and congestion as do large USA cities, their safety situation is 10 times worse than that in the USA as they have 130 fatalities per 100K vehicles each year, compared to 13 in the USA. There are obvious reasons for this statistic, but it mostly has to do with human drivers and human pedestrians taking huge risks to get around in that transportation system. Cars and PEDS will literally play "chicken" in the crosswalks, and there is no perceived right-of-way, it is first come first served. This transportation culture will take decades to mitigate by education. But with AV implementation, this safety problem can be eliminated by separating the cars from the people. It needs to be done as we are making very little progress in safety in the past several decades. 1.2 million vehicle related deaths each year throughout the world, and most heavily in countries where the vast majority do not drive cars, but walk, and the population is over a billion.
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PRISM Engineering is actively working on roadway designs and concepts that can help integrate AV with PEDS and Bikes in a meaningful and cost effective way, with the priority to significantly improve safety and achieve VISION AV0
There can be no higher priority in transportation than to strive to improve safety, eliminate the all too frequent daily vehicular fatalities, and calm the traffic situation through AV implementation while boosting transportation productivity and efficiency, even speed of travel in transportation (no more traffic jams or stop and go). If high speed rail can go 250 mph on a dedicated track, AV in all of its varieties of vehicle types, will be able to in dedicated pathways and expressways, travel at high speeds appropriate for a ground vehicle, much like we now enjoy on freeways. With AV roadway design, we will have more "freeways" and will do it with far fewer lanes, shorter headways, and much narrower lanes. Four lanes of travel will be possible within the existing pavement width of even the most narrow two-lane road. Most roads will be repurposed as needed to customize the available ROW for AV and divide the remainder for PEDS walkways, Bike lanes, Parks, and other useful land uses to be decided individually through planning and engineering by local governments throughout the world. |
For more information please contact PRISM Engineering
* VISION AV0 -- Vision Autonomous Vehicle Zero Fatalities -- an achievable and realistic goal to promote and implement autonomous vehicle technology throughout the world. VISION AVO will see the redesign of all roadways to enable AV resulting in enhanced safety for PEDS and all modes of ground transportation. VISION AVO promotes green electric Autonomous Vehicles and virtually eliminates congestion on all roadways. Harmony in Transportation.
